


your heart is a volcano (let your flowers bloom)

by Trotter



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Career, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, actor!TY, manager!yuta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-17 08:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12361668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trotter/pseuds/Trotter
Summary: In Yuta's fourth year as manager to Lee Taeyong, heartthrob of the nation, he contracts the stupidest disease he's ever heard of: Hanahaki.





	your heart is a volcano (let your flowers bloom)

Yuta is flipping the eggs for his first breakfast –first, because it’s nowhere enough but it’s still the only thing he knows how to make without supervision—when the alarm goes off.

He sets the spatula down and runs his eye along the security feeds. There isn’t a lot to see—all the corridors are barren given the hour and the lift only carries an exhausted young office woman. He watches her ascent, from the ground floor to the seventh, and when he’s satisfied she’s nowhere near the penthouse floor he turns his attention to rechecking the rest.

Yuta mumbles a swear and begins clearing up. He’d thought, in the first few months on the job, that working for someone as relatively peaceful as Taeyong would be a cakewalk. Now he realizes why Taeyong cycles through managers like a fox in a hen-house; a few months in, the lid gradually comes off of Taeyong’s crazy, and--

Yuta reaches out and plucks out a human-shaped dandelion from beneath the counter.

“ _Ow,”_ it squeals. “Ouch, hyung, let me _go,_ you _know_ my hair doesn’t grow back easy—”

“I don’t know, I think breaking into the apartment deserves a bald patch. Don’t you think, Doyoung-ssi?” he adds over his shoulder to Doyoung, who immediately straightens and pretends he’s never in his life tried to hide behind a potted plant.

“ _Yuta-hyung,”_ the brat in his grip whines. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have tried to sneak past you, alright? I thought I’d really make it, this time.”

Yuta considers him. “What are the magic words.”

“Yuta-hyung is a prince among men and the most handsomest and manliest hyung I have.” Mark wriggles out of Yuta’s slackened grip and brings his hands up to the crown of his head cautiously. “You could have grabbed me by the neck or something,” he informs Yuta.

“But you get so sensitive about your hair, how could I resist,” Yuta says and Mark makes outraged faces at him.

Doyoung clears his throat. “Out of curiosity,” he says, “how did you know we were here?”

“Blame ramen-head here,” Yuta nods at Mark, who clutches at his hair tighter protectively. “He was convincing in the lift, but middle schoolers don’t go to so much trouble to cover their hair.”

“Aah,” says Doyoung. “As expected of an ex-soccer player, your reflexes are good. What’s that on the stove?” He makes a move forward before he stops, frowns, and looks down at his shoe.

A flattened petal of a flower hangs off the sole.

“Get rid of that,” Yuta says with deep dread. “Seriously. Taeyong is about to wake up and we’ll die before we—”

“Got it, got it,” Doyoung says, binning it. “There. We’re safe now.”

“By the way, what _are_ you making?” Mark demands, trauma forgotten. “Oh, eggs. Will that be enough?”

“Calm your racing teenage heart,” Yuta tells him. “These are just to prepare us for breakfast, see? Any meal becomes three times more delicious if you’re not dying of hunger by the time you start eating.”

Mark makes a series of impressed noises. Doyoung raises a dubious eyebrow: “That sounds like you just made—”

“Good morning Yukkuri~~,” sings a nasally voice from the direction of the bedrooms. “I can hear you making a mess.”

“I can hear you having a terrible personality,” Yuta replies, pleasant. “Go back to sleep and fix your life, Taeyong-ssi.”

Taeyong descends then, a vision of sleep-rumpled messy hair and soft sleep clothes. His face makes even a simple entrance like this into a production; suddenly there’s sunlight fucking everywhere and birds are singing and setting off all of Yuta’s carefully-rigged motion sensors, and if there were woodland creatures they’d be here in a _swarm._

“Doyoungie, Mark-yah,” Taeyong greets, sounding pleasantly surprised. “You’re here as well? Let me make rice real fast.”

“Yeah, it’s not like they have to be here every day since they work for you or anything,” Yuta states plainly. He plates the eggs with a few deft twists of his wrists, showing off.

“I don’t,” Mark offers.

“Eat your eggs,” Yuta tells him, and Mark does, obediently.

“I’m just here to put your life together,” Doyoung says. “The food is incidental.”

Yuta fakes a cough, that turns into a real cough, that turns into a coughing fit. The attention switches to him for a moment.

“Oooh,” says Mark, his eyes turning saucer-shaped. “Hyung, you okay?”

“I have Propolis spray,” Doyoung says.

Yuta snorts into his hand. “You know I gave that Propolis to you as a joke, right?” He snaps his disposable gloves off, hyperfocusing on every small movement so he doesn’t have to look back up and meet Taeyong’s wretchedly worried eyes.

“Yes, but it’s useful,” Doyoung says snippily. “There are days I have to talk for hours straight, you know. None of you would be here if I didn’t.”

“I would,” Mark says.

Doyoung and Yuta both roll their eyes violently.

“Fair point,” Taeyong says. He hipchecks Yuta into a chair and begins to set the table; the glare he gives Yuta for trying to help is enough to freeze the blood in his veins. “How is our landlord-nim?”

“Dad’s flying to Toronto again this week,” Mark says, glum. He pokes at the rice Taeyong gives him. “Man, I’m not so sure I should’ve insisted so hard to go to school here. It’s like I’m here more than he is.”

Taeyong hmms. “But your Hangul has really improved. And don’t you have a lot of friends here?”

 They go on in this vein, heads dipped together. Taeyong’s in his element, wringing his hands with worry over Mark’s insecurity, and Yuta’s glad for this, glad that Mark stumbled into their lives and got to see that people like Taeyong existed in this world. He’s listening with half an ear, shooting back lazy comments when Taeyong turns his big beseeching eyes on him, all _Korean isn’t that hard, honestly,_ and _high school sucks anywhere if you've got ramen for hair_ _._ Just as he’s warming to the subject, though, Doyoung interjects.

“Taeyong-hyung, you’re running late,” he says. “Your first schedule is in an hour.”

Taeyong blinks at him.

Yuta prods, “What is it?” because he honestly doesn’t bother keeping track anymore. He’s just the glorified chauffeur.

“CF,” Doyoung responds promptly. “It’s for a brand of face masks, hyung, but after that you have that episode on Talk Talk Talk.”

“Ah,” Taeyong says; immediately, his face softens. “With Joy.”

Doyoung tenses next to Yuta, giving him a quick glance. He adds, a little snippy, “Not just her, Johnny-hyung as well. And do we really need Yuta-hyung for that interview? If you don’t know your way back and forth in that area you’re really no use—”

A scowl comes readily to Taeyong’s face. Yuta wants to wipe it away with his thumbs. “Yuta’s free to do as he likes,” he says, all bluster. The look he shoots Yuta is hesitant, almost scared. “Yuta, don’t come if you don’t want to. It’s up to you.”

“No,” Yuta croaks. His throat is so dry. “No, I want to—I’d like to come.”

He knows he said the right thing when tension drains from Taeyong’s tiny overworked shoulders. He covers it up quick; moves on with an imperious nod, but it’s been a long time since Yuta’s needed Taeyong to be honest to know what he’s thinking. Now –still, despite everything, despite this unhappy rough patch in their easy friendship—Taeyong’s somehow glad Yuta will be there.

And, as Yuta tells himself, that’s enough.

 

As the maknaes of the agency, Yuta and Doyoung handle two types of clients: the ones that are still starting out their careers and don't have a lot of schedules, and the ones that had some kind of troublesome defect, like a tendency to cancel every schedule on a whim. Yuta had joined the company fresh off graduating from university in Japan, where he'd spent most of his life imagining he'd play soccer for a living and had had no idea about Korean pop culture beyond occasionally watching TVXQ music videos. He blames his ignorance for not packing up and running as soon as he gets assigned to Lee Taeyong, who's been famous since he was nineteen, has a separate  cabinet for his Most Popular Actor awards, and is the most pernickety, confusing man Yuta has ever met. 

Once Taeyong vanishes back into his bedroom and Mark’s riveted by the cooking show on his iPad, Doyoung corners him.

“Taeyong’s mad,” he says, even his whisper carrying a shriek-y quality. “What did you _do._ The hyungs at the company will kill me, you know he’s our biggest client. _”_

“It wasn’t me,” Yuta protests. “He’s a sensitive guy, it could’ve been anything. It was probably you, did you think about that?”

Doyoung snorts, his bunny-mouth contorting. “Please, hyung. As if he’d ever get as mad at me as he gets at you.”

“Now that’s just unfair.”

“It’s because you’re a dumbass,” Doyoung says unkindly. “You could at least try to—” he breaks off when Yuta begins coughing, loud enough to drown out even his shrieky scolding. Yuta feels something _expand_ in his chest, pushing out all the air, rupturing his lungs. _So fast,_ he thinks. It happened so fast.

Both Mark and Doyoung are staring at him slack-jawed when he straightens up. He wipes the blood from his mouth and snaps his gloves off, using them as a container for the bloodied roses he’d coughed up, and throwing them neatly into the grave of flowers in the waste bin.

“Stupid Korean diseases,” he rasps, leaning on the counter.

Mark is wordlessly filling a cup of water.

“Oh, _Yuta-hyung,”_ Doyoung breathes. He looks devastated. “Hyung, that’s— you told us it was just--”

“It’s just a cough,” Yuta insists.

“So that’s why Taeyongie-hyung was—”

“Taeyong doesn’t know,” Yuta says, very fast. “Taeyong doesn’t find out. Promise me.”

Doyoung chews on his lip, upset. His eyes follow Mark across the kitchen as he goes to hand the glass o Yuta.

“I don’t know a lot about what’s going on,” Mark says, graver than any middle-schooler should have to be, “but hyung, I think you should at least go and see a doctor. It’s—it’s really far along, if you’re getting full flowers instead of just petals. You’ll start getting stems soon, and thorns, and your lungs won’t hold up.”

Yuta looks at him helplessly. “You know all this but you still don’t know better than to turn your hair into ramen.”

Mark clicks his tongue. His frustration startles Yuta, because that’s not _Mark,_ because Mark likes jokes, Mark likes keeping things light and fun and most of all Mark likes to pretend Yuta’s shortcomings aren’t there. “You’re always like this, hyung. You joke around when things are hurting you, you never take care of yourself--”

“I’m sorry,” Yuta says. It trips out of his tongue, messy, ill-timed. “I’m sorry, Mark. I’ll go to the doctor today, I promise.”

Mark keeps looking up at him fiercely, unconvinced.

Behind them, Doyoung pipes up with, “I’ll go with him to make sure.”

Mark looks marginally appeased.

“Nice to see how much faith you have in me,” Yuta comments dryly. Mark glares again and Yuta flinches. Uwah, scary. “Sorry. Thanks, you two. You’re the best busybody dongsaengs a man could ask for. Now look sharp, Taeyongie’s coming out of his shower.”

Before they wander back to their places, Yuta strokes Mark’s face once, as gentle as he can make himself. “You’re a good kid, Mark-ah. I mean it.”

“Ah, hyung,” Mark says, shy. They go back to their breakfasts, now cold. Taeyong  enters and visibly holds back from commenting on the tension, and then he starts herding them all out; Yuta grabs the box of disposable gloves on the counter before he leaves.

And the worst part is, Yuta reflects, that neither Mark nor Doyoung had to ask who the flowers were for.

 

Yuta has never thought too much about _feelings_ , and he isn’t about to start now. He leaves that to the Taeyongs and the Marks of the world, and stoically plunges into the day. He doesn’t think about the gloom that simmers in his stomach when he records all the differences in the way Taeyong used to treat him before he turned against Yuta: Taeyong has stopped asking him to teach him Japanese, stopped taking his hand for reassurance before difficult shoots, and there are no more exhausted hugs from behind at the end of the day. It all probably means something, probably means that Taeyong has begun to eject Yuta from his life.

They’d always been opposites, had their fair share of fights, but it’s never been like _this_ before, Taeyong turning vicious and petty, snarking insults at Yuta like he actually meant them. Yuta tries not to feel too destroyed when instead of attaching to his side and kissing his cheek in reassurance as he'd once have done, Taeyong turns petty when Yuta makes a mistake. 

Taeyong goes on about how Yuta had taken thirty minutes longer than usual to find the location of the next shoot, making them run late.  When he makes a comment about what a disappointment he must be to his parents,

“Would you shut up for once in your life,” Yuta snaps. There were lines. 

Taeyong freezes for a second, his eyes wide, hands picking up the hint of a tremble. He wipes it off in an instant, though: a sneer comes readily to his face. “You fucking up is okay, but me mentioning it isn’t?”

 “It was literally just—you know what, never mind.”

Taeyong’s expression flashes between victory and unhappiness. It must be exhausting to feel so much, all the time without a break. Yuta just clenches his jaw and stares out the window, pointedly.

It takes a while for Taeyong to get the hint.

“I’m going to find out, you know,” he says, soft and dangerous. He’s observing Yuta through his lashes. “Whatever it is you’re hiding from me, I’m going to find out. And when I do, you’re going to regret it.”

Yuta holds in a cough and tastes the blood on the inside of his mouth. “Why would I hide things from you, Taeyongie.”

Taeyong chews on his lip.

“That’s what worries me the most,” he says.

 

Blue-haired gentleman Johnny is waiting for him in the dressing room.

“You look like shit,” he tells Yuta, pulling him into a hug. “I’d ask what’s wrong but I guess I already know.”

Yuta ignores this. “Look at you, you handsome fuck,” he says, reaching up, _up_ to twist a lock of Johnny’s hair between his fingers. “I didn’t see this on your IG.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty new,” Johnny shrugs, full of that aw-shucks-don’t-mind-me charm that works like magic on his talk show. “It was supposed to be a secret till today’s episode. The amount of caps and beanies I’ve worn this week, dude, you would not believe.”

“It looks good,” Yuta says, and Johnny ducks his head like a schoolboy. “Handsome man,” Yuta coos.

“You and Taeyong are seriously too alike,” Johnny says. “It’s a little scary.”

“You’re the first one to say that. Everybody usually goes on about how we’re opposites.”

“Opposites attract. Ah, but that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Johnny offers a sad little grin when Yuta looks at him sharply.

“Doyoungie called in a favor. I’m your date to your doctor’s appointment.”

Yuta tips his head back and groans. “He’s probably making a post on his blog as we speak, just in case someone missed it. _Foreign manager gets the hots for Korea’s number one sweetheart._ ”

Johnny laughs into his hand. It feels so normal, just talking about it like this with Johnny, who despite the millions of fans and dedicated following is the most normal guy Yuta knows. Yuta hasn’t felt this good in _weeks_.

“Doyoung tried to hide it,” Johnny admits, “but man, you’re kind of really obvious. How hasn’t Taeyong found out yet, if you’re choking up roses all over the place?”

“I’m just picking up after myself.”

“Taeyong must be over the moon.”

Yuta snorts. Johnny searches his expression, his blue bangs falling into his eyes, and concludes, gently, “He could feel the same way, you know. If you talked—”

“Not gonna happen,” Yuta says. “I’m no good with talking about this kind of stuff. He’ll want to know how I’m feeling, exactly, and I’ll just say some words that don’t mean anything. It’s just not going to work out.”

“Do you want me to—” 

The call goes out for everyone to enter the studio, interrupting them. Yuta grins with a what-can-you-do shrug and slips out of the room to come face-to-face with the sight of Taeyong and Joy with their arms linked, talking with their heads bent close. Yuta’s never seen Taeyong look that fond, that softly affectionate—

“Hey guys,” Johnny says, stepping up behind them. He puts his hand, briefly, on the small of Yuta’s back as he passes. “Yuta and I have somewhere to be after the shoot, but we’ll call you to meet up for drinks?”

Taeyong’s calculating gaze slides over to Yuta. “Sounds good,” he says, and Yuta barely has time to paint on his usual grin before Taeyong looks away, dismissing him.  His apathy has a numbing effect on Yuta; he spends the whole recording in sort of a daze, finally jolting out of it when Johnny begins leading him out the building with a hand on his shoulder.

“How was the show?” he asks, twinkling at Yuta.

Yuta rallies. “It was amazing, seriously. Your best yet.”

“Liar, liar, liar,” Johnny sings. His arm comes around Yuta’s shoulder, a comforting weight. “You didn’t hear a word, did you? Shame. There was a segment about life partners and Taeyong couldn’t take his eyes off you and you were too busy spacing out to notice. Really,” he assures when Yuta sends him a disbelieving look. “It’d be too sad if you forgot anything about him.”

“Is that…how it works?” Yuta says hesitantly. “I forget about him?”

Johnny shrugs and looks up at the sky. “Honestly, I have no idea. It’s not exactly well-documented, and people don’t like talking about it. But it’s basically taboo _not_ to have the surgery. It’s sort of seen as being weak-willed.”

Yuta plays with his jacket zipper, thinking.

“They could take the flowers, my heart and my lungs out,” he admits into the silence of the car, “but I don’t think _anything_ could make me forget about Taeyong.”

Johnny accepts this, like he accepts everything. “Romantic,” he hums.

 “Right?”

 

Ten is waiting by the entrance of the restaurant, and when he sees Johnny he gives a happy, bright smile. Johnny returns it, and they all walk in. They’re greeted by a sight that’s becoming familiar: Taeyong and Joy laughing together, eyes sparkling, cheeks flushed.

Yuta’s limbs lock him into place.

Johnny offers, right away, “Yuta, let’s go somewhere else. Right, Ten? We’ll go tell Taeyong and Joy that we--”

“No,” Yuta says. In his mind’s eye he stalks up to the table and dumps Taeyong’s wine on his pretty white shirt; or, thrillingly, just grabs his hand and pulls him out of the restaurant, pushes him against the wall and kisses the life out of him.

He coughs, once, and a rose falls through his lips.

Yukkuri _,_ Taeyong calls him—it’s because Yuta rushes into everything with no sense of timing. If he’s hungry he’ll eat, and if he likes someone he’ll tell them, push the truth out as fast as possible so that it’s out in the open, done, not his to carry around anymore. And when he falls, he falls quick—so fast that he doesn’t notice it himself.

 _It’s unusually far along for such a new case,_ the doctor had said. _It’s progressing too fast. You’ll have to make a decision soon._

Yuta breathes out. _Yukkuri,_ he thinks: slowly.

“No, you guys go,” he says to his friends. “I think I’ll go home. I’ve got to think about some stuff.”

 

“Yah, isn’t it past your bedtime?”

Mark looks up from his iPad. His earphones make him look like a baby alien, all eyes and gigantic ears and ramen hair.

“It’s Master Chef,” he says, like that explains anything. “They’re making ravioli, it’s really hard, you have to get it exactly right.”

“Amazing,” Yuta says. “What does you dad think about you staying up watching American shows in other people’s apartments?”

Mark shrugs and unplugs his earphones. A lull of foreign chatter falls into the silence through his speakers, and Yuta goes to him tiredly, accepting the unspoken invitation.

“Where’s Taeyongie-hyung?”

Yuta shakes his head. “Dinner with Joy and Johnny. And Ten.”

Mark hums. “Huh.”

“Did you eat?”

Mark waits politely till Yuta finishes coughing to answer. “Yeah, I ordered pizza. These are really pretty, hyung,” he says, meaning the flowers. “I looked them up. The yellow ones are called marigolds, and the blue ones are forget-me-nots. Only the white ones are, you know, roses.”

Yuta wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and snaps his gloves off. He’s getting really good at doing it.

“It’d be too sad if I forgot Taeyong,” Yuta huffs.

“It doesn’t always work like that,” Mark says. He puts his iPad away and smiles up at Yuta, reassuring. “Sometimes it turns out okay. You don’t forget the person, just how you felt.”

“Look at you,” Yuta marvels, twisting Mark’s big elf ears. “Boy genius.”

“ _Hyung,”_ he whines, embarrassed; he looks away before he admits, “my dad had it, when we first moved here. After, you know. His divorce and stuff. He was like you, he didn’t want to forget so he waited till it got really bad.”

“But he did it, in the end,” Yuta murmurs.

“Of course, hyung. Everybody does it.”

Yuta says, “I still—” but he’s interrupted by the trill of his phone.

 _Come pick up your boy,_ says Johnny. _I’ve gotta drop Joy and Ten home and I don’t want Taeyong to drive drunk._

Yuta kills the display and smiles up at Mark. “Duty calls. Want me to drop you at your place, little man?”

Mark is already gathering up his stuff, piling all his empty pizza boxes and tangled headphones in his arms. “My dad’s probably waiting up.”

Taeyong is thrilled to see him, when Yuta shows up at the bar almost twenty minutes later. He’s usually a really cautious drinker, so when he does let go, it doesn’t take a lot to fuck him up.

“Yukkuri,” he stumbles over to Yuta and falls to him.

“Taeyongie,” Yuta grunts as he struggles to support his dead weight. “Did you have a good time?”

Taeyong mutters something that sounds like ‘you shut up’ into Yuta’s hair. “Yuta,” he says again, emphatic. “Where were you? I ordered those, you know, those round things that you like—”

“Takoyaki?” Yuta offers.

“Yeah those! I ordered them for you and waited and waited, but you didn’t show up so I ate them all myself,” he announces, triumphantly.

“I don’t mind,” Yuta says, and runs his hand through Taeyong’s hair. “Come on, time to go home.”

“I really really like those round things,” Taeyong says as they somehow stumble outside. It’s not easy thanks to Taeyong’s long legs that keep tangling up everywhere. “Buy me some.”

“Maybe later.”

“Promise?”

“Sure, sure,” Yuta says easily. “Any other requests? I’m in a generous mood.”

Taeyong extends his hands immediately, taking Yuta by surprise. “Piggyback.”

Yuta stares at him. Sternly, Taeyong insists: “Now.”

“You’re such a baby sometimes, Lee Taeyong,” Yuta mutters, but he goes down anyway: lets Taeyong drape himself across his back and hitches his chicken legs up, up, so he won’t fall down and crack his idiotic head. Taeyong makes a delighted noise and wraps his arms close.

His watch says 1am. His watch says 1am and there are still cars passing by and there are still people milling out from clubs and bars, and Yuta’s throat still burns from his last coughing fit but he feels warm wherever Taeyong’s touching him, a crazy kind of joy simmering alongside his want, and—

“Look at all the lights, Yukkuri,” Taeyong whispers into his ear. “Are the lights this pretty in Osaka?”

Yuta says, vaguely, “It’s alright. We don’t stop and look at the pretty lights that often back home, you know.”

“Home,” Taeyong sighs wistfully. “You still call it home.”

“Of course,” Yuta says. “I’ve only been here a few years.”

“I know, I know,” Taeyong says. “I shouldn’t have… it was shitty of me, to blame you for missing your home. For thinking…I’m just being an idiot. I’m sorry.”

Yuta’s chest tightens. It’s not a fun feeling: it makes him cough up a whole shower of flowers before he cans top himself, a bloom of red, white and blue.

A few fall right into Taeyong’s awed hands.

“Yuta,” he says, soft and scared. “Yuta, what—”

“Don’t think about it,” Yuta says desperately. “Don’t think, don’t worry, just stop. I’ll explain everything in the morning.

Normally Taeyong would never have let it go. Normally Taeyong would have stood here arguing with Yuta till the sun came up, and they were both sick of what their friendship had become.

But this Taeyong is too tired, too visibly heartsick to even try.

“Okay,” he says, and leans his head on Yuta’s shoulder. “In the morning.”

 

Yuta has a startlingly vivid dream that night, that starts, like all of Yuta’s wet dreams start, with Taeyong leaning back on his bed, pink hair and pink lips, fingers lazily running up Yuta’s chest. Following dream logic, Yuta bends down to steal a kiss, sweet and sticky, but some time in Taeyong’s just lying there looking at Yuta like he hung the moon, not particularly doing anything erotic.

And then, his door is swinging open and Yuta is waking up.

It’s Taeyong.

“I made breakfast,” he says, harsher than ever. “Do you want some, or not.”

Yuta answers after a long pause. “Doyoung and Mark?” He swings his legs out of the covers.

Taeyong is glaring up at the ceiling, his cheeks turned red. Yuta tries and fails to feel any kind of shame for sleeping in his boxers, because he _really_ has bigger things to worry about. “They already left. You slept for ten hours.”

Yuta considers this. “Oh. In that case breakfast sounds good.”

“No need to force yourself,” Taeyong snipes, clenching his fists. “If you’d rather eat with _Doyoung and Mark—”_

“I just said I wanted to,” Yuta says, fighting to keep calm. “Why are you making a big deal out of this.”

“You’re driving me crazy, Yuta,” Taeyong says. He’s shaking all over, angrier than Yuta’s ever seen him, _incandescent_ with it. “Of course I have to make a big deal, otherwise it’s you running around with your manly man bullshit ignoring your problems until you keel over and fucking _die,_ and who’s going to be the one to tell Mark that his precious Yuta-hyung is dead? Me, that’s who.”

 “ _I’m_ driving _you_ crazy? Me? Who’s the one that’s been starting fights all month, huh? Isn’t it enough for you that I’m—”It’s like Taeyong can see everything on his face, like a gaping wound, and to make it worse he begins coughing the prettiest flowers yet, blood red roses that stain the sheets before they roll away.

 Taeyong cups the flowers in his hand like the confession they are.

“It’s real,” he breathes. “Last night, I thought, I thought I dreamt it up.”

Yuta scoffs under his breath. Even that brings up a mouthful of petals now.

“Who is it,” Taeyong asks.

He’s still running a finger over the petals in his hand absently, but his full attention is on Yuta, so he doesn’t miss the incredulous face Yuta makes at him. His chin tilts up. “Is it someone from, you know.”

Yuta raises his eyebrows.

“Osaka,” Taeyong spits out, like it’s a dirty word. “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me? Because you want to resign and go back home and start a family with someone who doesn’t even _love you back_?”

The world stops for one idiotic second.

“ _What?”_ Yuta says, gaping at him. “Taeyongie, what the fuck.”

“You were telling Mark about how home is where you end up no matter what you do,” Taeyong says, looking so frustrated that there’s tears in his eyes. Taeyong is an angry crier. “And obviously you weren’t talking about here, you didn’t mean _me,_ you were talking about Japan and the person you liked and I don’t know what to _do_.”

Yuta goes up to him and takes his hand. The rose falls noiselessly to the floor.

“Taeyong,” he says, because finally, finally, he _gets it._ “Taeyongie, it’s you.”

Taeyong freezes.

“I love you a lot,” he says. “I nearly puked up an entire flower shop for you, see? I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re a fucking dumbass,” Taeyong tells him. He shakes Yuta by the shoulders once, before he tilts Yuta’s face with reverent hands and kisses him square on his lips.

Yuta’s eyes fall shut, and he shivers. Something in his chest comes loose and flies away, like a freed bird.

“You could have just told me, and none of this would have happened,” Taeyong accuses in a whisper. He still sounds ready to fight Yuta, even as he traces the lines of his face, a soft touch travelling from his eyebrows, pushing his hair away from his forehead, travelling down the bridge of his nose to end at his lips. Yuta opens them and Taeyong’s adam’s apple gives away how hard he swallows.

“Yeah, well, word on the street is that I’m a dumbass,” Yuta says. It turns into a breathless low moan as Taeyong threads his hand through his hair and pulls him in for another kiss.

“Now go brush your teeth,” Taeyong says, sweet as sugar. “You’re fucking disgusting.”

 

 

“It should have been me with the stupid flower disease,” Taeyong muses, as they bin the last batch of roses. “I’ve loved you for longer.”

Yuta crinkles his nose. “Proof or it didn’t happen, Taeyongie.”

Mark chimes in, from the kitchen: “I can prove Yuta-hyung was in love with you last March.”

“I have recordings of that time Taeyongie-hyung was going on about his ideal type and describing Yuta last December,” Ten says, and smirks sunnily at Doyoung’s snarl.

“Guys, we’re really happy you guys sorted things out, but do we really have to make this a competition?” Johnny asks, smiling.

“You’re just bitter Team Taeyong is losing,” Yuta tells him, and Johnny’s face cycles through surprise, disbelief, and skeptism before it lands on resignation, and he throws his hands up and wanders back to help Ten set the table.

Taeyong cuddles up to Yuta from behind. Yuta braces himself, because this means he’s about to say something really gross and saturated with aegyo.  Sure enough: “I was really mean to you, though,” he says, stroking Yuta’s hair. “It was because I really thought you wanted to leave.”

Yuta hums. “But you were a real dick though. Very unlovable."

Taeyong rolls his eyes and kisses the smirk curling the corner of Yuta’s lips. “Yah. I should have let the death flowers take you.”

“I’d have haunted you so bad,” Yuta tells him, a promise, and watches the joy light up Taeyong’s eyes, prettier than any sunrise. “You can’t get rid of me that easy.”

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to edit this so it's fit for human eyes, honest, but my brain enjoys forgetting simple logic whenever I start writing fic. I tried.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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